Both pagers and wireless devices, such as cellular telephones, are widely used forms of communication. Although a few two-way paging systems have been developed, paging systems are typically one-way radio communications systems. In order to send a message to a user who has a paging device, the sender contacts a paging NOC, usually via a telephone or computer network. Upon accessing the paging NOC, the sender can perform certain operations, including inputting a call-back number or message to be sent to the paging device or leaving a voice message for the user of the paging device. The paging NOC can then deliver the call-back number, message or the voice message to the paging device through a paging network using standard Over-The-Air protocols, such as POCSAG or FLEX.
Wireless cellular devices, on the other hand, typically communicate through bidirectional communication systems. Most of these devices allow for real-time bidirectional communication. For example, when an individual wishes to contact a user who has a cellular telephone, the individual usually dials the number associated with the cellular telephone from the individual's cellular or landline telephone. Once a connection is established between the two telephones, voice and other data are transmitted to and from the cellular telephone through a cellular network, using standard cellular protocols such as GSM or CDMA.
The transmitters used in paging systems typically operate at a higher power level than the transceivers used in cellular systems. Accordingly, the coverage area associated with individual transmission towers in paging systems is often greater than the coverage area associated with individual transmission and reception towers in cellular systems. For similar reasons, paging systems also tend to provide greater penetration than cellular telephone systems. Moreover, unlike cellular systems, paging systems have the ability to simulcast transmissions by utilizing constructive interference to strengthen the signal, which further increases the coverage area and penetration of the paging signals. As a result of these differences, paging service is frequently available in certain geographic areas and environments where cellular telephone service is not available.
In addition, due to their configuration, paging systems typically allow for multicasting of paging communications to multiple devices. Thus, a paging system can broadcast information to a large number of users simultaneously. Conversely, cellular telephone systems typically only allow for messages to be transmitted sequentially (i.e., to a single cellular device at a time), and cannot broadcast messages to a specific group of users simultaneously. Paging systems, therefore, generally provide increased reliability with respect to the delivery and receipt of communications as compared to cellular telephone systems.
The need to subscribe to a paging service (in addition to a cellular service) is important for many users, such as those who work in certain time-sensitive professions. This is primarily due to the higher degree of reliability and timeliness provided by paging systems. This is especially true for people working in certain fields, such as medical personnel and emergency workers, who are often required to carry a paging device in addition to their cellular telephone. In these, and other, professions, messages need to be received as reliably and as quickly as possible. For example, in hospitals, minutes and even seconds often make the difference between life and death. The ability to deliver messages to doctors and other medical personnel quickly and reliably decreases the response time for medical emergencies. In turn, this can often decrease negative impacts to patient health associated with the time taken to respond to the medical emergency. Similarly, many emergency workers need to receive messages reliably and with minimal delay in order to respond and react effectively to various emergency situations. Frequently, these emergencies involve life-threatening situations, in which rapid response time is vital. As a result, in these professions, even small increases in the reliability, or decreases in the delay, of message delivery and receipt can significantly impact the number of lives benefited or saved.
Additionally, there has been a substantial rise over the last two decades in terrorist attacks and “active shooter” events. A common problem associated with these events is a lack of ability to immediately transmit mass notification messages to individuals in the threat area. Without the ability to broadcast messages, there is no practical way to provide potential victims with status notifications in real-time. Also, these events are often widespread and can involve a large number of emergency or response personnel. As a result, another common problem has been the lack of ability to simultaneously provide status notifications and instructions to update and coordinate such personnel in real-time. These issues have further emphasized the potential benefits to subscribing to both paging and cellular services.
In order to subscribe to both paging and cellular services, however, consumers typically have to carry, monitor and maintain two separate devices. This leads to a number of inconveniences with respect to the portability, cost and ease of use of these devices. While systems have been developed that provide an aggregated pager and cellular telephone (e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 5,117,449), these systems have merely attached the two devices together, or combined the devices within a single housing, in an apparent attempt to address the problem of owning and carrying separate devices. In these systems, the pager and cellular telephone typically operate as separate devices or components within the aggregate device. As a result, these aggregate devices have exhibited a number of drawbacks and limitations, which have resulted in their failure to be adopted by consumers in any meaningful way.
For example, one drawback to these aggregate devices is that they do not provide for status messages, such as acknowledgements, and responses to be sent back to the paging NOC that delivered the paging message. Another drawback is that these devices do not provide for the delivery of paging messages through an alternate path, such as a cellular network or the Internet, in the unusual circumstances where paging network service is weak or unavailable. These functionalities are crucial to many paging users, such as those working in time-sensitive and/or emergency situations, because they allow for a more efficient, reliable and timely messaging system. Accordingly, there is a need for an integrated pager and wireless device that addresses these drawbacks and, in turn, maximizes the reliability and minimizes the delay of the messaging system.
Other systems have been developed in which a pager, that is connected to or combined with a cellular telephone, is used to “wake-up,” or initiate a call with, the cellular telephone (e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 5,701,337). The purpose of these systems, however, is to conserve the battery life of the cellular device by allowing the cellular device to go into sleep mode or power down and then be “woken-up” by the pager prior to an incoming telephone call, rather than to allow for both cellular and paging functionality in a single device. As a result, these systems do not provide users with paging service in addition to cellular telephone service. Accordingly, these systems do not allow users to receive and view paging messages on the user's cellular telephone or wireless device.
More recently, systems have also been created which have attempted to use cellular networks in order to mimic the services offered by paging systems (e.g., PageCopy by American Messaging; and MessageSync by Indiana Paging). These systems provide users with an application that can be installed on their cellular telephone or other wireless device that receives and displays certain messages on the device. These systems, however, do not utilize a paging network and, as such, do not provide a user with true paging services. Instead, these systems merely use the cellular capabilities of the user's device to deliver messages to the device through a cellular network thereby mimicking a paging message. As a result, these systems do not provide users with the advantages associated with true paging network services, such as greater coverage areas, penetration, timeliness, and reliability, as well as the ability to receive multi-casted messages.
Thus, there is a need for a system which combines the features and advantages of wireless devices, paging devices and their associated networks into a single device, while maximizing the reliability and minimizing the delay of delivering messages to users. There is also a need for a system which can display paging messages based on the priority of the messages. There is further a need for a system which can generate and display possible response actions based on the received messages and/or data stored on the device. There is still further a need for the ability to broadcast emergency messages to a large number of users simultaneously. In light of the beneficial qualities of paging systems, such as greater coverage areas, penetration and timeliness, as well as multicasting, it would be desirable to provide a system which allows users to receive, view, and respond to messages received through a paging network on wireless devices, such as cellular telephones, and which provides status messages back to the paging NOC, including status messages that indicate successful delivery, receipt, and/or acknowledgement of the received paging messages.